Problems of Foreignisation.

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The notions of foreignisation and domestication in translation theory were first proposed by Friederich Schleiermacher, a German theologian and philosopher who also dabbled in a range of other subjects, including linguistics. His terms for these concepts, alienation and naturalisation, were later taken up in the twentieth century by Lawrence Venuti, who renamed them foreignisation and domestication.

These approaches to translation were based on the idea that in translating a text, the culture of the original text has to be accounted for in the translation, either by ‘adapting’ it to the culture of the target language, and thus bringing the text to the reader (domestication), or by making the target language adapt to the culture of the source text, and thus taking the reader to the text (foreignisation).

Both approaches have attracted negativity: domestication is often seen as a betrayal of the culture expressed by the original text, while foreignisation is seen as inherently elitist and not always something that necessarily adds to the diversity of the situation (Robinson 1997, 109-112), although Robinson points out earlier in his criticism that foreignisation can be seen very positively indeed in terms of a colonial reading (i.

e., that it ‘decolonises’ the original text). Foreignisation can also serve to make the translator more ‘visible’ by highlighting the foreign identity of the source text and protecting it from the ideological dominance of the target culture, which is one of Venuti’s concerns, and this could be read as a positive or negative consequence of the approach (just as could the consequence of domestication on the visibility or invisibility of the translator, whereby translation should have such a fluent, transparent and ‘invisible’ style that the target text’s foreignness is minimised).

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Foreignisation And Domestication

Both approaches are also to be handled delicately: it is perhaps the translator’s natural instinct to ‘domesticate’ the target text to suit the widest possible audience, and as Nathalie Rami�re points out, translation for cinema (if you like, intralingual translation) has the greater cultural ramifications, both in the way national cinema is seen abroad and how cultures perceive each other and themselves. Such genre crossover is a good example of both intralingual translation and domestication, and one specimen to have come to light in recent years is the extensive modernisation of Shakespeare through film, such as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. Another Shakespearean example, which is an example of domestication without being especially intralingual, lies in the existence of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which seeks to perform the entire works of Shakespeare in 97 minutes. This is carried out successfully and as succinctly as it promises, and it could be argued that it somewhat departs from the original culture from which the plays came, being performed extremely colloquially.

Richard Jacquemond notes in his 1992 article that as if translation were not complicated enough in itself, the operation becomes doubly so given that by definition, two languages and thus two cultures and two societies are involved. Concessions are often made: he goes on to say that translations of French works into Arabic during the 19th century reflect the very free relationship between Arabic and Western culture: for example, French titles were often ‘arabised’ to catch the Arabic reader’s attention, either in the Arabic tradition of rhymed titles or in a more modern fashion. However, this example deals with two quite different cultures, which begs the question of whether the difference between cultures (and thus between translations) is more distinct the further apart the cultures are, or whether very pronounced cultural differences between languages are universal in their application, regardless of their ‘closeness’. It could be tempting to ascribe to the former notion, whereby foreignisation and domestication are only really very important notions in translation when the cultures are very far apart indeed. However, this is perhaps debunked when the difference between France and Qu�bec is considered, showing just how important the two approaches really are: Qu�bec does not identify itself solely with any French-speaking country, nor solely with Canada, and the province derives its distinct identity from France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States. The difference between the French, the Canadians and the Qu�b�cois is further emphasised in the world of academia, where a not insignificant body of criticism devoted to the province and its cultural and linguistic identity reflects this distinctiveness (one example lying in Culture In Transit: Translating the Literature of Qu�bec, edited by Sherry Simon).

The importance of both foreignisation and domestication, then, perhaps inevitably leads to a need for reconciliation between the two, and perhaps the area where this has been achieved at the highest level is in the realms of classical literature. “The recuperation of ancient poetry into modern theatre,” says Lorna Hardwick (2000:144), “has progressed beyond the point where simple contemporary allusions…are any longer necessary in order for the audience to be convinced…[A]ncient poetry mutates into an experience which is both devastatingly familiar and magically transformative.” Among the contemporary translators eager to achieve this goal in their translations of ancient poetry and drama are included Robert Lowell, Seamus Heaney and Liz Lochhead. Modern directors and translators share a common aspiration when dealing with ancient works, in that both attempt to make the ancient and the modern come together in a way that will be successful with the general public, and finding that ‘space between’ can be difficult. Indeed, Jonathan Miller, after directing Robert Lowell’s Prometheus Bound in 1967, pronounced that “Classics are simply residues, maps left over from earlier cultures; they invite you to make some sort of imaginative movement”.

Moreover, in making this imaginative movement across cultures, translators still have to contend with the omnipresent problem of maintaining appropriate fidelity to the text concerned. In light of this, it is perhaps worth considering domestication and foreignisation as concepts that cannot be compared so symmetrically, especially when they have to work so closely together. Rather than being polarising concepts of an ethno-centric reduction of the text to target-language cultural values versus ethno-deviant pressure to register linguistic and cultural difference, they should be registered as concepts that can blend the contemporaneity of the culture that is familiar to us and the strangeness of the culture that is not; and while the text should to an extent be brought to the reader (it is, after all, the overall goal of translation), the reader should be prepared to do a little ‘travelling’ too.

(b) Select a short passage which allows translation in both a domesticating and foreignising manner, and outline the text-specific issues which arise from such a project.